The lack of western condemnation of the US military intervention in Venezuela could embolden China and Russia to take similar action against other countries, Emily Thornberry, the Labour chair of the foreign affairs committee, said in her Westminster Hour interview last night. Peter Walker has the story.

Good morning. Before Christmas, Keir Starmer was planning to use the first week back after the holiday recess to highlight what the government is doing to bring down the cost of living. He set out this case yesterday in an article in the Sunday Times, where he referenced measures including the budget plan to cut energy bills by £150 on average. Unfortunately, Starmer’s cost of living PR blitz has been blown out of the news agenda by Donald Trump, and his entirely different different approach to the problem of ensuring his voters get access to cheap energy.

No one in mainstream UK politics seems to be very keen on adopting the Trump approach – which is probably good news for Norway.

But there is an intense debate under way about what the UK government should be willing to say about Trump’s decision to abduct Nicolás Maduro, the Venezuelan leader, and replace him with someone expected to be more compliant with US demands, particularly in relation to the country’s oil industry.

Keir Starmer has declined to criticise the American intervention, and the government has dodged questions about whether or not it viewed what happened as legal. Last night all EU states apart from Hungary issued a joint statement which, while not overtly critical, did stress the value of international law, and by implication accuse Trump of ignoring it. It said:

The European Union calls for calm and restraint by all actors, to avoid escalation and to ensure a peaceful solution to the crisis.

The EU recalls that, under all circumstances, the principles of international law and the UN charter must be upheld. Members of the United Nations security council have a particular responsibility to uphold those principles, as a pillar of the international security architecture.

Mike Tapp, the migration minister, was doing an interview round this morning and, on the Today programme, when asked if Starmer was refusing to say the Maduro extradition broke international law because he was afraid of upsetting Trump, Tapp replied:

Absolutely not. The British government is, and will, be in conversations with the Americans. And it’s for the Americans to lay out the legal basis for the action that they’ve taken. And we’re also talking with close allies looking at the legal aspect of this.

But last night, in an interviews on the BBC’s Westminster Hour, Emily Thornberry, the chair of the Commons foreign affairs committee (and a former shadow attorney general), said she was very concerned about the way Trump seems to think, like Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping, that he could do what he wanted in his sphere of influence.

Asked about Starmer declining to say that Trump was in breach of international law, Thornberry said, because the PM was in government, he had to weigh up “a number of considerations”. But she was in a different position because she was not a minister, she said. She went on:

In the end there is no getting away from it. This is not a legal action.

[Starmer] may well want to hear what the justification is from the American government. I can get in front of that and say I literally cannot think of anything that could be a proper justification.

Here is the agenda for the day.

10am: John Swinney, the Scottish first minister and SNP leader, gives a speech in Glasgow. The Scottish Labour leader, Anas Sarwar, and Scottish Conservative leader, Russell Findlay, are also giving speeches, at 10.30am and 1pm respectively. All the leaders are looking ahead to the Holyrood elections in May.

Morning: Keir Starmer is on a visit in Berkshire where he is due to speak to the media.

11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.

2.30pm: Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, takes questions in the Commons.

After 3.30pm: Yvette Cooper, the foreign secretary, is expected to give a statement to MPs about Venezuela.

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